Swallowed in the Sea
by ElocinMuse
Summary: Series of oneshots and drabbles pertaining to "Hero in the Hold." Airing Feb 5.
1. Put me on a shelf, kept me for yourself

**Author's Note: This will be a series of short oneshots/drabbles pertaining to "Hero in the Hold." There will be some spoilers, some only speculative, some enhanced by artistic liberty. Song referenced is "Swallowed in the Sea" by Coldplay.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Thrill. Nervous anticipation. Not for the party itself, of course. He hates parties. But _she_ asked that he attend as her date.

He never could deny her.

It's a curious thing. Why should this feel so… different? In a fashion, he's weightless. So high from the butterflies foraging in his stomach – since when does he get butterflies? – that he fears he'll be sick. Flying and falling.

Strange. But not. Unexpectedly exquisite.

It's an exhilarating sensation. Maybe he might not feel so anxious if it weren't for their skating lesson a few weeks ago. Ever since then, things have changed. Things have _been_ changing. More rapidly, more profoundly. Even their banter has become lighter, more flirty. Earlier today, for example, during their phone conversation.

Their looks linger longer. Eyes aren't as guarded.

Braving the unknown, rented tux form-fitting and smooth, he steps into the large ballroom. Brown eyes search and expertly scan every face and figure.

For her, of course.

There had been no other reason for him to be here.

Tonight had been so important. Why, he hadn't been sure. But he'd felt the heat, the shift.

And so he'd sought her.

Tall and elegant, commanding the entire ballroom unknowingly with her radiant presence alone, he sees her. Hair curled in waves, twisted loosely up at the top of her head. Skin pale and milky, inviting. Her brilliant smile stretches a mile wide when she finally sees him, and he's on the moon. Waving, she beckons him over.

The artist floats to his side, smiling knowingly, but not in a pressuring way. "Looks nice, doesn't she?"

No hesitation. No break of eye contact.

"Beautiful."

Angela's smile stretches until the dimples appear, and she touches his arm once. Encouraging. Moves on.

Brennan becomes lost in the crowd, but he'll find her. Follow the intoxicating scent of her perfume.

They'll share a dance, maybe two. Smiling, bodies closer than usual. Cheeks might brush. Her gloved hand might linger on his shoulder, the nape of his neck. His hands will stray to their place at the small of her back.

The _knowing_ is mutual. Things are happening. _Everything's_… _happening_.

He'll offer to get her a drink. Smiling shyly, she'll accept.

On his way to the champagne stand, he'll stop by the restroom to fix his bowtie. And maybe to settle his nerves.

On the way back, the halls will be dark. He'll weave his way through the shadows, not fearing the danger he doesn't perceive. The sounds from the ballroom will call to him. Whisper tantalizing promises of the night to come.

And then he'll feel the chloroform cloth clamp over his mouth. Disoriented, faint. He's a big man, trained in the art of war and combat. One method of capture won't do it. Initial attempt needs to throw him sharply off his game, from the very start.

He'll fight back, elbow his assailant blindly. Released, he'll stumble. Vision swimming, ground falling away from him. He'll think of her, only and foremost. He has to make sure she'll be safe.

_Get to Bones…_

He'll feel the bite of the Taser. And then his world is black.

She'll never get her drink.


	2. I can only blame myself, you the same

**Author's Note: Continuing on...**

* * *

Her gently increasing concern at his absence mollifies just a little when her cell phone trills from her purse. Seeing his name on the ID, she quickly unfolds it and presses the speaker to her ear.

"Where are you, Booth?" she questions easily. Only a twinge of displeasure laces the tone.

But it isn't his voice. Isn't him at all.

It's _him_.

Booth has been taken.

Every fiber of that sentence alone is _wrong wrong wrong_…

The device slips slowly from her suddenly numb fingers, cascading down until it collides against the expensive tile flooring of the ballroom, which has become suddenly silent to her ears. Breath catching, the dial tone resounds from the floor. Final, resolute.

Haunting.

Tears prick at her eyes, her expression revealing the naked dread. There's no time limit, no negotiation, no ransom. Deliver the evidence, or her partner will die.

Everyone assembles around her, experiencing their own harrowing responses.

"It's my fault," she whispers, closing her eyes against the rushing colors.

_My fault... my fault..._

_Please forgive me, Booth._

* * *

Fear.

He isn't as acquainted with the sensation as he'd once been. But it pours off him in waves, now.

It's dark, cramped. His broad shoulders are compressed to the point where his elbows almost have to rest on his stomach. Swallowing against the whimper trying to escape his throat, he tries to calm himself. Gain awareness and composure. But he's panicking.

He's never liked small dark spaces. Ever since his father locked him in that closet…

His hands press against something above him, desperate. Searching out a release. A catch, anything. He slams his hand once, twice, against the smooth surface.

The burning hole in his chest stills in its agony, just a little, when he finds the bolt heads. Shakily, he twists his fingers around them until they're all clanking onto the surface plate beneath him.

Breathless, he shoves the hatch off the drum and clambers out of what he learns to be a small yellow submarine. Survival instincts outweighing confusion in this instance, he looks back inside the shell of the containment cell for any clue or tools he can use.

Within, a small notepad and pen. Snatching it up, he quickly reads the note.

_You should have stopped looking. _

The signature makes him still. A slow sinking in his abdomen, boulder in his throat. Desert in his mouth.

It's signed almost like _GoD_. An eerily ironic twist.

But the small circle between the two letters is really a punctuation. _GD_.

_Gravedigger. _

Before he can even fear for his own life, he's suffering in her expense. Now he's unhappy because she'll be hating herself for asking him to that party. Where he'd been taken.

It isn't her fault.

_Bones, it's not_, he wills her to hear.

Even if his voice could possibly reach her, he knows she'd never listen.


	3. Cut me down to size, opened up my eyes

**Author's note: Onward! Excelsior!**

* * *

Hallucinating isn't as much of a drawback as he might have originally assumed.

The less appealing side is that he's being visited by his former spotter, whose death he'd felt responsible for since the moment of its untimely occurrence. While Teddy's ideas for getting him out of this ticking time bomb are sound combined with his own, the younger man's – ghost's? – presence is daunting. All too remindful of his past failure as a superior officer.

He'd always felt the guilt for paying too close attention on the shot. Not enough mind to his surroundings, his Ranger partner. Together, they could survive. Alone, they're less than greatness. The relationship is symbiotic. He'd failed Corporal Parker.

"You told me to keep my head down before taking that shot," Teddy says finally, voice fraught in solemnity. "It was nobody's fault but mine for chancing that one last look over the ridge."

Silent, still, he allows the concept to weigh in on his consciousness. Reluctantly accepting, he bows his head.

"Lot's wife," he mumbles in agreement. Concordance in himself.

The memory of carrying his fallen brother across that hill, blood on his jacket, feeling his heart stop, is all too tangible. Even now, fifteen years later. The air is heavy, the regret potent. Even if surrendering responsibility, he still mourns the loss of his comrade. His other functioning half, all those years ago.

Finally, the younger man cracks a smile to lighten the atmosphere.

"I ain't nobody's wife, Sarge."

Booth laughs. It is a sad sound.

* * *

She needs to strike something. The imperativeness of this desire is pertinent, lest she lash out at her loved ones who are trying to help her find what's lost to her.

She knows, though… who she must seek out.

Hodgins holds the key. The stolen evidence?

Not all paranoia suffers the drive of perseverance.


	4. Made me realize what I could not see

**Author's Note: Getting closer...**

* * *

"No one should be lonely," Teddy blurts out of nowhere.

Booth looks up from the Mermaid-Charge the corporal had constructed, the question in his eyes before it reaches his lips.

"You still seeing that Becca girl?"

A twinge in his chest reminds him of the unresolved pain behind that story. He loves Rebecca – always will. She's the mother of his child, he can't deny her importance in his life. But that love is a faded and pale reminder of what he'd hoped could be.

"Um… no," he shakes his head, looking away. Sloshing water as he moves across the ship that's slowly taking on ocean bellows, he evades the asking follow-up the boy hopes for.

"You can love someone but not like them," the kid ventures.

Booth chuckles bitterly. "Got it in one."

"Life is too short, Sarge. It won't do any good to be alone. Or mooning over something you think unattainable."

This stops his movement. If Teddy's a ghost, that's all fine and dandy. But if he's not, if it's another case like Lucky Luc… his own subconscious sending him messages?

Turning his head away, he attempts to physically avoid the look in his former partner's eyes. They're showing him what he already knows, what he already fears to approach. But he's never liked turning his back on Truth.

"You got an eye for anything lately?" Teddy presses further, wading through the foreign sea in his fatigues.

Lowering his gaze, the feminine image burning behind his retinas is clear and sweetly inviting. The unattainable is always the prettiest.

"There's someone…"

* * *

"Don't lie to me," Brennan demands. Fierce blue eyes piercing and steadfast. There's a shine over their surface, a requisite fury. "You've been obsessed with our kidnapping. You haven't trusted the FBI or anyone else to investigate. Now you've gotten Booth taken."

"You know I'll pay whatever ransom he demands. You know I don't want anything to happen to Booth."

"There's no call for ransom, Jack." Her tone is snapping, resolute. "It's the evidence. He wants the evidence."

"The FBI could be involved," he beseeches. They've shared in this horror, and so he can't understand her willingness to let it go so easily. "We almost _died_. Don't you want to catch the bastard who did that to us?"

Stepping closer, she meets his gaze evenly, unwavering and unyielding. Her voice is quiet, tone careful and low. "Right now I want to save Booth. _Get me that evidence_."

And now he understands. Blinking at the acceptance tugging at his being, the surrender, he nods. Knowing her intense and rampant purpose.

He's never been one to mince words, and neither has Dr. B.

"You love him, don't you?"

Something flickers behind her eyes almost quicker than he can catch it. A fleeting vulnerability. But there's no room for weakness. Her partner is lost, and she's vowed to find him. She knows too well that fear he's suffering. That not knowing.

"You say it like it's a question."


	5. Could write a song a hundred miles long

**Author's Note: Almost there...**

* * *

"The last crazy ass stunt we'll ever pull together, Sarge," Teddy bodes, a sad sort of upturn to his lips.

"You think the transponder worked?"

An odd twinkle sets up behind the kid's eyes. "Do _you_ think it worked?"

Booth doesn't reply. He's more focused on the garage type door that's becoming more and more pressurized with ocean weight by the minute.

"That doors going to give soon."

"Weird," Teddy shrugs.

"What?" Booth regards him, brow creased.

"I'm nervous and I'm already dead."

Booth turns back to the door, waiting. Heart pounding.

"Aren't you going to use that?" Teddy nods to the notepad peeking out of Booth's pocket.

"No point to. Water will compromise the ink."

"Maybe not. Stick it in your shoe when you're done. Besides, either way, we're getting out of this chamber. If you drown, you'll float to the surface. No worries."

Booth snorts at the gallows humor.

"C'mon, Sarge," Teddy encourages softly. Caring with underlying magnitude. "There's gotta be someone you want to say goodbye to."

He meets his former partner's eyes, all the time thinking of the partner he has now, wherever she might be. Faraway or drawing close, the tears he's been adamantly dodging this entire time finally rise to the surface. Brimming at his eyes, insistent.

Blinking, he tugs the thick little notepad out of his pocket, gazing at it sadly. Realizing there's not enough paper for what he needs to say. There will never be enough paper.

Shakily, he grips the pen, crouching down into seated position. He begins to write, his fallen brother looking on, the churning waters behind the door filling his ears. In his head, he knows the prayer – the _Act of Contrition_, and the words of it whisper from his lips. His St. Christopher's medal is heavy around his neck beneath the shirt collar.

As soon as he puts a signature to the farewell, tucking the note into his shoe, the door gives. A waterfall of sea water pours into the room, consuming everything in its path.


	6. Belong with me, not swallowed in the sea

**Author's Note: The end is nigh...**

* * *

The sea harasses his throat, the surface but a tempting specter far above. Lungs burning, suffering, muscles straining. He fights for topside, his strength slowly abandoning him.

A shadow passes over him, an odd curiosity. Probably just a tag to the rest of the black spots dotting his vision. His ears start to buzz with a dull white noise, eyesight fading almost completely now.

Reaching for the light, and then there is no more.

Until a hand clasps his, a saving grace.

Suddenly, he's pulled from the water and deposited on a solid surface. Several men in scuba gear hurry away, making room for others.

Weakly, his head lolls back against the boat deck, eyelids fluttering, chest heaving. Twenty-one hours in that floating prison, and he's too exhausted to even thank his rescuers. Tremors wrack his body, the chill of the sea water temperature ailing him. A helicopter roars overhead.

There are people all around him, tending to him, some with FBI markers on their jackets, some HRT, some Coast Guard – is that his brother, too? And then there she is.

_Bones._

Like a beacon in the darkness.

She's demanding her way through, fear in her eyes. Unveiled terror and beautiful liberation of the crowd. She drops to her knees beside him, sobbing, grasping his hand. She's so warm, and he's ice. But she's smiling – so exquisite in blissful relief. Tears in her eyes, laughter on her lips.

Maybe he has drowned… such a sight is too perfect for mere earthly grace.

And suddenly she's kissing him, and the universe blinks.

Her lips slide over his, desperate and wanting. His heart seizes in his chest, both in pain and confused euphoria. His stomach flips, and he's weightless. Some might say it's the prolonged absence of oxygen in his brain and lungs, but he would scoff at them.

They know nothing. His partner is kissing him.

He's alive and surfaced, and he can't breathe again. It's magnificent. It's perfection. He will surely die of happiness in mere moments.

She spares him though, and withdraws. Tears still clinging to her lashes. Her eyes are shining, her lips are trembling. She draws him to her again, pressing her heart against his own.

And he's transported back to the Checkerbox Bar, bleeding and fast losing consciousness. The moment is mirrored, now as it had been then. _Live_, she'd told him, had conveyed to him as he lay dying of a gunshot wound in rescue of her.

_You're alive, _she tells him now.

As he clings to her, no longer gasping for air but with a reflection of her heaving sobs, it's now that he realizes just how afraid he'd really been. Afraid of leaving her again. Afraid of dying, again. Afraid of leaving his son without a father, _again_.

He owes her so much. So much that cannot be repaid.

He loves her.

The late realization provokes a shudder to course through him, and he's shaking.

He _loves_ her.

He's in love with his partner.

Pressing her cheek to his, sacrificing her warmth to him, she cries. Exultant, despairing over the moments of not knowing.

She loves him. Oh, does she love him. She closes her eyes, drinking in his proximity and presence. His _life_. His scent.

He's _alive_.

She hadn't realized before just how much she'd missed him in those two weeks. She holds an idea now, sobbing with abandon into his shoulder. It frightens her, the depth of this feeling, and just how much she needs him. Needs him to live. Needs him to be breathing.

To his disapproval, she pulls away, and he's mourning her nearness and touch. He tries to call to her, but the weakness of his voice prevents him. She's back though a second later, bringing a water bottle to his lips.

He drinks greedily, at a loss for how someone surrounded by water and partially submerged could be so driven by thirst. The mind buster is too much for his disoriented priorities though, so he files the thought away. Focusing only on her and the sweet elixir she's offering.

_It's happening. Everything's happening. _


	7. Forget but not forgive

**Author's note: The end. Epilogue. **

* * *

Weeks later, he's in his office when the Bug Man knocks.

"Hey, man," Hodgins greets, a little tentatively. A halfhearted wave, and Booth has to motion him in before he even attempts an entrance.

"Hodgins, what can I do for you, pal?" he offers, interest mostly fixed on the small black combo safe he's storing the files in.

The Bug Man doesn't smile. In fact, he looks out of place. A little ashamed.

"In the interest of full disclosure, I thought you should know that I used your security clearance to obtain those evidence files on the Gravedigger."

If surprised, it doesn't show on Booth's face. Nonplussed, he turns back to the safe, loading documents.

"I figured if you wanted to shoot me, I'd save you the trouble of hunting me down and show up here on my own."

"I wouldn't have any trouble hunting you down."

Hodgins finally looks up from the intense stare he'd set against his feet. The G-Man's face shows no evidence he'd just spoken.

"I know what I did was wrong, but I… what it was like, down there, not knowing…"

"You don't have to worry about it," Booth interrupts, looking up from the file. A change overcoming him.

Hesitant at the cut off, Hodgins waits before speaking. In the end, he doesn't have to.

"What that son of a bitch did to you, to Bones? I understand now what you both went through, completely. And it's unacceptable."

Bones – _his_ Bones. His partner, now in more ways than one. Every way.

Heaving the remainder of the files on the counter onto his desk – a heavy _whump_ at the weight – he points to them. "This is all the new information I've gathered. Every connection to that ship, the party, even the damn little Beatles toy I was stuck in. Call my kidnapping a recon, if you will."

The air shifts, becoming colder, heavier.

Hodgins holds his breath, transfixed as brown eyes cloud over with a feral darkness. The molten brown literally becoming black.

"I promise you, Jack, I will find this guy. And _when_ I find him… I won't be bringing him to justice in handcuffs."

It's a long stretch of silence, seconds unspooling, before he arrives at his knee-jerk reaction.

Hodgins smiles humorlessly, nods. "We never had this conversation?"

"Whose land do you think I'm going to bury him on?"

"That's… ironic and fitting. I like it."


End file.
